My cousin Chip Gillespie died of cancer at age 72 in the beginning of 2015.  I was unable to attend his memorial but, nevertheless, wanted to do something to interact with the other family members who would be there.  This was the result.

 

Chip was kind of a cool uncle figure for me as I was growing up.  He was part of my dad's generation but a bit younger.  He had many talents but perhaps the one that made the biggest impression on me at age 10 was his ability to talk like Donald Duck.  He could say anything as Donald but he would always come around to saying the word "periwinkle" as his finale. (Hence the title)

 

I had finished a kind of experimental portrait of Nicole Halpin only weeks before this. I was drifting into territory that I had theretofore always sidestepped - namely trying to capture something distinctive about the model's personality.  Perhaps it was something about the shorter work time of the markers.  Maybe it was that I just didn't care very much about appearing "edgy" for prospective galleries.  Or, perhaps, (even more likely) it was the genuine grief,  the feelings of real loss and consciousness of just how finite one's time really is that made me say "Fuck it! Let's start really trying to capture something about the people I know and care about."

 

I felt relieved that I was able to make this look like Chip. (at least I thought I did!) I thought his pose caught some of the coiled up energy that I associated with him. There was a roughness and close up blotchiness in the application of the markers on the heavy watercolor paper I prefer. (BTW I HATE marker paper!) I hadn't quite anticipated this.  But the roughness in most cases did seem to assemble to make a convincing whole.  The fact that he is wearing almost all white ceratinly made for some streaking in the application of the lightest tones. The shoes and the collar remain some of my favorite details.